LCSC Junior Swimmers Success on the East Coast

On Saturday 2nd November, 29 young swimmers from LCSC made their way to Larne Leisure Centre for the Larne Sprints gala. A competition missing from the calendar for nearly twenty years, (evoking some fond memories from a few coaches) but now firmly back on the annual fixture list.

A rocky start to proceedings when the team arrived to hear of a 50 minute delay. However the swimmers took this in their stride and we re-organised and re-focused with no complaints and got stuck in to our pre-pool routine -in a badminton court and not poolside this time, which worked extremely well. Pool warm ups under way and swimmers settled in to their team area, for some this was going to be one of their longest meets to date (some swimmers were on deck for 8 hours straight).

The racing was good and swimmers were making their skills from the training pool count in the racing arena. Even though some were tired from a tough week of training and others from competing in multiple races in a short time period, all performed very well indeed. The maturity of the swimmers is now starting to come through, where, not every swim will be a PB swim, not every swim will bring medals but every swim is an opportunity for them to improve their abilities to be skilful in racing conditions.

When the swimmers are ready and a little more rested those abilities and skills done under the pressure of fatigue will be so much better. From the day, the team managed to collect a total of 32 medals including 8 Gold, 11 Silver and 13 Bronze, there was also 52 Top 8 placing and 99 PB times.

More is certainly to come from this advancing team of young hungry swimming lions. Many thanks goes to Larne Swimming Club and especially their meet organising committee and their score’s of volunteers. Nothing was to much trouble for them. Although under pressure from technical difficulties earlier in the day the meet ran very well indeed.

Thanks as always to our superb parents for supporting your swimmers at this meet and to the coaches, Josh and Dave, guiding them through the day. Next up for the swimmers (those selected) is the War Memorial Relay Gala, to be held in Aurora on Saturday 9th. A night where swimmers get to pay their tribute and remember in their own way those fallen. It;s sure to be a fun and frantic night of relay competition and one not to be missed.

#earnit #skillsunderpressure